


Five Mysteries and One Fact

by Salt_Teen



Series: Out of the Dark [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Ah fuck, Angst, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Gavin Reed Being Less of an Asshole, Gavin Reed is Bad at Feelings, Gavin Reed-centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, It's just a character study, It's not super important though, Post-Pacifist Best Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, i beat gavin with the emotional damage stick - asmr, it's a character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-19 05:13:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22572457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salt_Teen/pseuds/Salt_Teen
Summary: "Gavin was loud. Everything he did was angry and aggressive, and horrendously loud. From the way he walked, to how he slammed doors behind him, to his shitty old car."Life is full of little mysteries, but it is also full of facts. These are not mutually exlusive, as much as the people around Gavin like to pretend that they are.
Relationships: Tina Chen & Gavin Reed
Series: Out of the Dark [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1732720
Comments: 6
Kudos: 100





	Five Mysteries and One Fact

**Author's Note:**

> This gets a little dark, so be sure you've read the tags and stay safe.

_Mystery #1 - coffee - just the way you like it_

Everyone got coffee on their birthday. That was just something that happened. No one knew who was responsible, but no one complained. Especially since whoever was doing it was pretty spot on with what people liked.

It was one of those things that everyone knew about but no one remembered until it happened again. Then a few guesses and theories would be talked about, but no one was ever right.

Gavin talked quietly with Tina in the break room. Well, quiet for Gavin at least. Tina was talking about a date she’d been on recently, and while Gavin _was_ listening, his attention was somewhere outside of the break room.

That was usually how talking with Tina went, they'd take turns talking while the other would listen in silence. It was a nice system, Gavin thought, it worked for them.

There was a lull in the conversation, Gavin remembered something she'd told him earlier. 

“How’d that appointment go, by the way?”

Tina blanked for a second, “What appointment?”

“The one for your cat. That was a few days ago, right?”

“How did you know about that?”

“You told me like a week ago. How’d it go?”

“Oh. It went good.”

“Nice.”

Tina continued to prattle on about the details of the appointment, about how apparently her cat was acting sick for attention- but that she was glad the cat in question wasn’t actually sick. Gavin watched outside of the break room. 

Tina followed his gaze, someone had found coffee on their desk.

“Any theories on that?” she makes a gesture towards the person, they both know what she’s talking about.

“No idea and I don’t really care ‘cause I’m not included in it.”

“Really? I thought they got everyone.”

Gavin shrugged, “Guess assholes don’t count.”

That was all that was said on the matter. 

_The Fact - good memory_

There were many things about Gavin that people didn't know. They didn't care to ask, and he never bothered to tell.

He liked it better that way, or at least that's what he told himself. Not like anyone was around to dispute. There was something weird about being universally hated, it was like everyone forgot that he was a human too.

People didn't care if he was good at remembering things, they didn't like him. They didn't care if he was actually good at his job, they wanted him dead. No one cared if his world was crumbling because to them he wasn't someone with a world. 

He was a two-dimensional being, someone without feelings, experiences, or motivations. He was a background character. 

That was fine. If people wanted to hate him he wasn't going to waste energy trying to change their minds. If people weren't going to listen to him, then he wasn't going to bother with talk. If they weren't going to believe him, then what was the point of improving. 

He hid in plain sight, to them he was just some loud, hateful asshole. He liked to believe he was a little bit more than that. It kept him sane. 

If you could call him sane.

He didn’t know how to go about interacting with people, but what he could do was make coffee. So that’s what he did. A silent peace offering.

_Mystery #2 - someone called Rose_

Information spread fast, that was a fact. Just because no one liked Gavin didn't mean he was exempt from it. Information about him just took a little longer to spread. 

He didn't care what people said behind his back because if it was something he didn't want spreading he just didn't say it. 

_What's so hard about that?_ he thought, taking a short sip of his coffee to check its temperature. He took a longer one when it proved to be cool enough. _How do people just blurt out their whole life story?_

"You alright, Gav? You seem kinda down."

Gavin could never tell if Tina _truly_ cared about him or was just working some twisted angle on him. He cared about Tina, as much as he was capable, and he trusted her. But only to a point. Tina hadn’t done anything yet, but he’d had run-ins with too many people who acted like her before turning on him.

Half of his brain debated on telling the truth or not, the other idly wondered if he had bad luck with people or if it was something about him.

He decided he didn’t care if Tina knew, and he didn’t want to argue with her if she decided not to drop it. Which she did sometimes, much to his annoyance. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.

“It’s nothing just uh- Rose finally croaked on me. Made her into a paperweight…” He tapped his fingers on the table between them, using as much of his chewed up nails as he could to make a quiet clicking sound.

People had complained about his tapping before, but after a couple of threats with an old pen he’d found in his desk people quickly shut up about it. That was the thing with him, people only listened to his threats.

Tina looked at him incredulously, “You- made her into a _paperweight_?”

“Yeah? It’s not hard to do?”

“...She’s not a _person,_ right?”

Gavin laughed, “No, where’d you get that from?”

“You never said she wasn’t.”

“Never said she was.”

Tina thought for a moment, about all the rumors she’d heard about who Gavin had been talking about the whole time. Some nicer, others dark. That was the thing, is that people didn’t really have a bar set for ‘too low for Gavin to do’. Anything was fair game until proven otherwise, and no one was going to defend him.

Other than Gavin himself, but Tina had repeatedly seen that he had little interest in doing that. Instead, he preferred to pick fights, yell at others, and be a general nuisance around the work-place. 

“Well, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, she was old.”

Gavin didn’t say anything else about Rose. In fact, he never really mentioned her again. It was as if she- and anything relating to her- had disappeared. 

_The Fact - us vs them_

Gavin's first memory was watching a stranger puke up his guts in their bathroom while his mom slept on the couch. His four-year-old shadow lurking in the doorway. Once the man finished he flushed the toilet and cleaned himself up. He harshly shoved Gavin out of his way with a muttered 'move, brat' and left the apartment. 

He watched his mom sleep, wondering if she'd wake up before three that day.

That was all he really remembered before living with Elijah's family, and his mom never talked about it. 

Eli's family let Gavin and his mom stay with them under the condition that his mom didn't tell anyone who his real father was. They tolerated him like one might tolerate a fly on a wall.

It was him and his mom against them, and when he started going to school it was him against his classmates. 

He wondered if it would ever stop being everyone against him, but it never did. It continued all throughout school and into his adult life.

Gavin took up a one-strike policy. If you weren't with him, you were against him. If people weren't going to be there for him, he wasn't going to let them stay in his life.

Sometimes he thought about dropping the act. He thought about sitting with his brother on their roof at three in the morning. He thought about apologizing to people and rebuilding bridges. 

_It's easier this way,_ he told himself. And if it weren't for the constant ache in his chest he'd believe it. 

_Mystery # 3 - inside of his car_

Gavin was loud. Everything he did was angry and aggressive, and horrendously loud. From the way he walked, to how he slammed doors behind him, to his shitty old car. 

Everyone could hear his car pull up to the precinct, but he never entered for at least five minutes. He was never late because of it, he showed up early, and people didn’t say anything about it, to him or otherwise.

People assumed he used this time to smoke, someone had seen him with cigarettes a few times. He’d quit smoking years ago, but when people were looking for more reasons to hate you, a few times was all it took. 

Sometimes he thought about picking up the habit again, but it never happened. He reminded himself about the health risks he was taking and how too many of said cigarettes found themselves being put out on his upper arm. And if all else failed, he was spiting people by keeping clean.

The other question was what he did after work. Similar to his morning ritual, there would be a five to ten minute window between his departure and the sound of his car pulling out of the parking lot. 

Some rolled their eyes at the noise he made even while leaving, others sighed in relief at his absence, but most ignored it. The sound was regular, like clockwork, and they had learned to tune it out. 

Sometimes people thought about it, a half annoyed _‘what the hell is he up to?’_ crossing their minds, but the thought passed quickly and no one ever cared enough to investigate. Why bother? If he was going to quietly be out of sight and out of mind for a few precious minutes every day, no one was going to complain about it. 

_The Fact - half a witness_

The android that monitored the security cameras around the precinct decided she’d like to keep her job after the revolution. It was easy for her, it paid well enough, and it meant she didn’t have to hunt for a different job. Win-win-win. 

There was also something charming about the routine of it all. Everyone followed the same basic patterns every day. She liked the calmness of it, and liked being able to appreciate it for the first time in her three year tenure.

Many things she recalled seeing, but just now she was noticing them. She could be excited or curious about them. She could focus on them, instead of passing over them as she had before. She thought about how it might come off as creepy, but she didn’t care. They were her experiences and hers alone.

Every day she watched a car pull into the parking lot, and while it’s occupant was parked farther from others, he was parked very close to one of the cameras she watched over. She watched him sit quietly in his car, sometimes resting his head against the steering wheel, sometimes holding his face in his hands, and sometimes- or most often- just staring blankly through the windshield.

She’d seen him do it an uncountable number of times. He showed up, he sat for a while and then got out as if there was nothing unusual about it. She hadn’t thought about it before because he wasn’t doing anything wrong, so there was nothing to report, but now it puzzled her.

He did this even as the weather started to cool down, mornings and nights turning from bearable to nippy. She didn’t know what to make of it, what to make of him. Outside of the car he was aggressive and didn’t seem to be well-liked, but the second he was back in the car it was like a stranger had taken over his body.

She watched him almost every day when there was nothing else that needed her attention, and she pondered how bizarre feelings could be. 

_Mystery #4 - October_

October was terrible, but worth it in the end. Gavin went from a moderate workplace nuisance to completely volatile. Everyone did the best they could, treating him like an aggressive dog. It helped, but not much. 

His temper would last about a week and then dissolve into blissful silence. 

“ ‘Sup, Gav?”

Normally he didn’t comment, at most he’d scrunch up his face, but this time he just couldn’t take it. Not today, not this month.

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

There was no bite- and hardly any tone- in his voice. He sipped his coffee quietly as Tina lifted her hands in a vague ‘calm down’ motion, turning away to make her own coffee.

“Okay, _Gavin,_ ” she snarked, ”What’s up?”

_Everything,_ He thought.

“Nothing,” is what came out of his mouth.

“You sure?”

He gave a non-committal hum, “Tired.”

She nodded and gave him a small mock salute, “Get some coffee in you, I got stuff I need to work on.”  
  
“Good luck and godspeed,” he mumbled, returning the salute he’d been given.

Tina left the break room. Gavin stayed behind a bit, contemplating whether or not getting back to work was worth it. He decided that it was somewhat worth it for now and pushed himself away from the table he’d been all but slumped against.

After dropping heavily into his chair he started to work on paperwork that he’d normally leave for ‘slightly in the future Gavin’ as he liked to put it. He heard people talk as they walked past his desk. He couldn’t tell if they weren’t trying to be quiet or if he was listening too hard, but whatever the cause, he heard what they said.

“Wish he was like this all year,” there was a small chuckle and a gesture in his direction.

His face twisted, in what wasn’t anger, but probably looked just like it. He could feel his heart throbbing in the back of his throat, his extremities felt heavy and dull.

“Don’t say that so loud,” another voice and a playful smack to the arm, “You don’t want to ruin a good thing, do you?”

There was more laughter, but Gavin couldn’t hear anything over the sound of his pulse thudding in his ears. His chest felt like it was full of water and every breath he took was a slow struggle. He completely stopped breathing for a minute and even when his body forced him to draw in air, his lungs remained painfully numb.

He just wanted his stupid shift to be over so he could go home and stare at his ceiling until he had to come to work again. Rinse and repeat, until this stupid month was over and he could go back to pretending everything was good.

He sat quietly and did his work because assholes like him can’t afford to suck at their job.

_The Fact - a missed prescription_

October was terrible. Nothing good ever happened, at least not to Gavin. October brought painful memories of the past, reminders of deaths he didn’t want to think about, and the reminder that he was born and getting older, among other things. 

He always felt like shit, but when he realized that he’d failed to refill his prescription for antidepressants, he knew he was completely and thoroughly fucked. 

Gavin meant to fix that error, he really did, but a couple nights of overtime pushed him out of the window of time he had before everything came back again. There were three nights he could have done it, but he just _could not_ muster up the willpower to do it. 

By the time he got it done, his depression was in full swing. He didn’t start taking them, instead, he would dump them all into his hands and just look at them. The urge to take them all was overwhelming.

Many years ago, he’d call his mom when he felt like this. But she was gone. Because he couldn’t give her what she needed and refused to ask for help. Sometimes he’d stay up at night chewing his nails into pieces over the things he’d said and the toes he’d stepped on out of desperation.

But she’d died just the same. 

The pills in his hands made a soft rattling sound as he poured them back into their container. 

He’d tried. He did, but nothing changed. Everything was different, but he was the same miserable person he’d always been.

He was done trying, the revelation came to him after two hours of staring up at his ceiling from his bed. And for the first time in years, the thought didn’t scare him.

_I can’t do this anymore._

_Mystery #5 - no-call no-show_

As much as people wanted to get rid of Gavin, in some legal forms and some less legal forms, they knew he was at least dedicated to his job. So his absence was always a strange thing.

The first day, people didn’t think of it. _Probably sick,_ they thought and continued on their way. They skipped over the fact that the man _always_ called in if he was sick, and they’d heard nothing from him. Nonetheless, the precinct enjoyed its first day without Gavin in a long time. 

The second day started to raise suspicion. No one had heard anything from him. Gavin was the type to come back to work as soon as possible, spreading whatever had taken him out be damned. Everyone was thankful, whatever was plaguing the detective would not be passed to them for now.

The third day was the kicker. Eyes that usually passed over the man's desk paused on the empty space. 

Connor was called into Fowler's office. 

The talk lasted only a few moments, the android was to check on Gavin and possibly drag him to work. When asked why him specifically, he was told he could take the detective in a fight if it came down to it.

Connor sat at his desk for a moment, there were few people that disliked Gavin more than him. He didn’t want to see him, it wasn’t his problem if the man was going to impulsively stop caring about his job.

The android sighed, he was being unfair. Somewhat. He just had to check on him and then report back once he figured out why Gavin was acting out this time.

When he arrived at the apartment he knocked on the door. He did this three times before trying to open it. The door opened, much to his surprise.

He stepped quietly inside, “Reed? Are you in here?”

_The Fact - stale air_

The air in Gavin’s apartment was stuffy. It was like it had been abandoned despite the fact that someone did live there.

_No one lives here._ He was not someone. He wasn’t supposed to be anyone, and he was foolish for trying. Hot tears slid down his face, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away. No one was watching, and he didn’t care.

There was nothing to do, only prolonging the inevitable. There was no letter to write, no items that he wanted anyone to keep, no goodbye to say. Every second that he remained alive was only because he was scared.

His apartment was quiet, it always was, a thick layer of dust settled comfortably over everything. He hadn’t left his house in three days, hadn’t eaten, barely keeping himself alive.

_Is this it?_ he thought to himself, _Is this all there is?_

His stomach was a cold knot in his body, his heart throbbed slowly against his rib cage, his lungs refused to work with him.

Gavin sat on his bed. A glass of water in one of his hands and his antidepressants in the other. The wet streaks on his face felt icy in the cold air of the apartment. This was it, this was how he was supposed to die. Alone and in the dark.

_I can’t do this, I can’t fucking do this._

The pills in his hands weighed more than usual today, but that didn’t stop him from bringing them to his mouth. They sat there for a moment, they tasted bitter against the dry inside of his mouth. He didn’t care, no matter how much he tried he couldn’t.

He took a gulp of water, washing everything in his mouth down. He did this again and again until there was nothing left in the container. He didn’t feel good.

There was nothing left to think about, all he had to do was lay down and die. So he did. He was vaguely aware that he’d just spilled water onto his floor, but it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter.  
  


_The Fact - unlikeable, untouchable_

Most people hated Gavin, those who didn’t tolerated him. With the exception of a few work friends, he was on his own. 

He was loud, brash, and did what he wanted when he wanted. 

Many walked on eggshells around him, others avoided him or ignored him completely. It worked for the most part. 

Connor went over different ways the interaction could go as he drove. It might go smoothly, but the chances of that were low. It would most likely end in some sort of argument, and at worst a physical altercation.

The android wasn’t worried. Like Fowler had said, he could beat Gavin if it did come down to a fight. And if he was honest, it would be satisfying to do so.

The address both surprised and didn’t surprise him. It was in a more dangerous, run-down part of town. While the surroundings suited the detective, he wondered why he’d choose to live here if he had money to live somewhere safer.

He pushed the thought from his mind as he parked and got out of the car. He was here for work purposes and, to be frank, didn’t want to stick around longer than necessary.

Connor knocked on the door three times with no answer. He checked the door, following Hank’s advice on checking the easiest route first. The door opened and the android’s LED spun yellow for a second.

When he stepped inside the air was full of dust, "Reed? Are you in here?"

It was there, standing in the doorway of the silent apartment, that he considered for the first time that something might be wrong.

_The Mystery - silent as a tomb_

The apartment was small, so it didn’t take long to look around. Connor opened doors and poked his head in to look around. He paused in the last room, his LED going red.

“Detective?”

There was an unmoving mass on the bed. Connor turned on the lights, the mass- _Gavin-_ did not respond. He was curled up in a fetal position.

It was jarring, to see someone so loud and aggressive curled up like this. To see someone so intense look so vulnerable.

“Detective,” he said shaking the man’s shoulder, “I don’t have time for this.”

The man didn’t respond, there was no half-asleep shifting or mumbling, there was nothing. The skin underneath Connor’s hand was cold. Colder than it should be. 

He stepped back from the bed, looking on the floor around the bed. There was a small puddle of water, the offending glass having rolled farther under the bed, but what caught his attention was a small container close to the foot of the bed.

Connor checked the date on the container, and then inside of it. Gavin had gotten this a few days ago, but it was empty. If he had blood, it would be running cold. 

“ _Shit,_ ” he hissed out.

He quickly rolled Gavin onto his back, scanning his vitals. They were low, but okay, for now. The android let out a sigh of relief.

He called an ambulance, sitting next to Gavin as he waited. He kept one hand over Gavin’s wrist, physically keeping track of the man’s pulse. He didn’t need to, of course, but it made him feel a little better.

Connor watched Gavin’s face, which looked almost foreign without his usual scowl. He was pale and looked tired, which Connor knew he always did but he looked like absolute shit. He wondered if the man looked worse than usual or if he’d always looked like that and nobody bothered to notice. 

It felt wrong for the man to be so still when he was usually constantly on the move. Whether tapping loudly on his desk, bouncing his leg, or gesturing wildly with whatever he was saying. 

He looked dead, and to be honest, he was probably halfway there. The android stared at the floor, thinking about how if he’d come later he could be sitting next to a corpse. It felt like Gavin was looking at him, and he didn’t like it. He let go of the man’s wrist, realizing that his artificial fingernails had left crescent-shaped indents in his skin. 

The ambulance arrived and took him away, and Connor stayed behind just sitting for a moment. What was he supposed to do now?

After about twenty minutes he got a call from Hank.

“Jeffery’s asking where the fuck you are. Did you have to beat the shit out of the bastard?”

“No- I- He was-” the android stuttered out, “There was…”

“Come on, kid, use your words,” while Hank sounded mostly bored he did sound a little concerned.

“...Hank, he overdosed.”

There was a pause. Connor could hear Hank shifting, probably sitting up, on the other end.

“Shit, really?”

“He was unconscious when I found him. I called an ambulance.”

“...That’s fucked up.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” Connor looked at his fingernails while he talked.

“Is the bastard gonna kick the bucket on us?”

“I believe he’ll be okay.”

A pause, a weird silence for a weird conversation.

“You gonna be good, kid? That’s not exactly a nice experience.”

“...I think so.”

“Okay… Okay. See you when you get back.”

“See you.”

* * *

Gavin woke up, a single thought- a single word- surfacing with awareness.

_Fuck._

It was dark, but he knew he wasn’t in his apartment. He knew the feeling of a hospital bed and the ever-present permanent clean smell. He cracked his eyes open, they felt weighted, but he managed.

It was night, the sky outside of his window was dark and if he leaned to his left a little he could see some stars. 

Not the most unpleasant hospital wake up he’s ever had, but he can already tell the implications of what he did are going to royally screw everything up.

_Who the hell even brought me here? Why the hell did anyone bring me here? How did I manage to fuck this up?_

There was no one to answer his questions, and no comfort to be found in the lonely hospital room, not even sleep came back to him. So he sat awake, painfully awake, and pondered the questions. He could not come up with any answers.

When they realized he was awake they came in to check his vitals. The android who came to do it smiled at him sweetly, he didn’t react. He was in no mood. She asked if he needed anything, but left after the question was ignored.

Early the next morning he had a visitor, much to his surprise. Tina carefully peered into the room, as if coming in too quickly would make Gavin disappear. She let out a breath of relief when she saw he was awake, even though she’d been told that he was.

She stood next to him for a moment, tears starting to gather in her eyes and her hands out in front of her, but unsure of what to do. After a moment of indecision, she punched the bed frame next to him and let out a choked sob into her free hand.

“Don’t fucking _do_ that! Please, _never_ scare me like that again!” her voice cracked as she said it, a couple of tears falling past her lashes and down her cheeks.

He didn’t know what to say or do, so he grabbed her arm by the elbow. She grabbed him by his elbow, desperate for the anchor. 

“Ah, Fuck- don’t cry on me Ti, you know I don’t know what to do with that. L-look, I’m still here. I’m fine. It’s gonna be fine.”

She let out a shaky breath and wiped at her eyes, “You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”

“Better than I know my name,” he gave her an awkward smile.

She let out a chuckle at that, emotion still bled through the edges of it, but she wasn’t crying anymore and Gavin could work with that.

“ _Fuck,_ I was so worried about you. Connor told me and I almost-”

“Wait, Connor told you? D-did it spread that fast?” he ran a hand through his hair, “How many people know about this?”

“No, Connor was the one who found you. Fowler sent him to check on you.”

“That fucker was in my _house?_ Mine? The one _I_ live in?”

Tina nodded. A short moment of silence followed and then was broken by a buzz from Tina’s phone. She pulled out her phone and looked at the screen.

“I gotta get to work,” she flashed the screen at him, an alarm named ‘get to work’ took up the screen, “but I’ll come visit later. Don’t go anywhere.”

He scoffed at her and she laughed a little. Then she was gone.

True to her word, she visited later, but other than the short visit there was nothing to do. He left the hospital as soon as they would let him. 

The air in his apartment was heavier than normal, it was difficult to breathe. He spent a full hour standing next to the window in his bedroom, just watching. It felt weird, and if he was honest he still wasn’t sure everything was real. But each breath, every slow blink, and each thump of his heart grounded him more and more.

He stood in his apartment, still as a statue, but more alive than he’d felt in years.

* * *

It had been a month. He was doing better. There were a few less hateful stares wherever he went. He wasn’t sure if he preferred the pity in their eyes more, but it was something and he’d take it.

Gavin stood in the break room, drinking coffee. He could almost convince himself that nothing had happened at all, but he knew how dangerous that could be. 

Connor stepped into the room, looking at him warily. 

“… Detective?”

“The fuck do you want, tin man?”

“I wanted to talk to you about…” he trailed off.

Gavin sighed internally and took an uninterested sip of his coffee, “Last month?”

The android nodded, stepping closer. His LED cycled yellow.

“Don’t get your hopes up, there’s not much to talk about.”

“...I just wanted to say that I hope you’re doing better. No one deserves to feel like that, and I’m sorry I made assumptions about you.”

There was a long pause, the android standing quietly and Gavin staring at the middle of the table. Finally, Gavin moved to run a hand through his hair.

“Uh- Thanks. You’re,” he paused tapping quietly on the table, “you’re not so bad yourself, robocop.”

Connor smiled, but Gavin didn’t see it. The android left the man alone with his thoughts. For once, it didn’t feel bad. 

Something had changed, and honestly? Gavin didn’t mind it.


End file.
